T&T's Lalonde Gor­don suc­cess­ful­ly opened his in­door sea­son de­fend­ing his men's 200 me­tres ti­tle at the Great Dane Clas­sic in New York, USA on Sat­ur­day. The Zenith Ve­loc­i­ty Ath­let­ic Club sprint­er clocked 21.34 sec­onds to win sec­tion one of 19 in the timed fi­nals at the Ocean Breeze Ath­let­ic Com­plex in Stat­en Is­land.

In Birm­ing­ham, Al­aba­ma, Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions se­nior "Sports­man of the Year" Jereem Richards fea­tured in the men's 500m event at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­aba­ma (UAB) Blaz­er In­vi­ta­tion­al.

The reign­ing Com­mon­wealth Games 200m cham­pi­on and 2017 World Cham­pi­onships 200m sil­ver medal­list placed sec­ond with a time of 1:02.79, fol­low­ing UAB ju­nior Le­an­der Forbes (1:02.38) to the line.

At the same meet, field ath­lete Cherisse Mur­ray of the host team (UAB) placed third in the women's shot put event with her best throw, her fi­nal at­tempt mea­sur­ing 15.77m.

On the week­end, T&T had sev­er­al ath­letes ex­celling on the col­lege cir­cuit in­clud­ing Cop­pin State Uni­ver­si­ty's Aaron Lewis, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ken­tucky's (UK) Dwight St Hillaire, Akan­ni His­lop of the Louisiana State Uni­ver­si­ty (LSU) and Tamia Badal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado.

Lewis won the men's 60m hur­dles with 7.88 at the HBCU Bat­tle at the Ar­mory Track and Field Cen­tre in New York. Ear­li­er, the Cop­pin State se­nior won heat one in the pre­lim­i­nary round with 8.00 and ad­vanced with the sec­ond-fastest time.

Cop­pin State se­nior Nku Hen­ry com­pet­ed in the 400m and placed 24th with his 54.27-clock­ing.

At the Ken­tucky-Nut­ter Field­house in Lex­ing­ton, St Hillaire placed sec­ond in the men's 200m with 20.97 at the Jim Green In­vi­ta­tion­al. The UK ju­nior was sixth in the 60m fi­nal with 6.92 ad­vanc­ing out of the pre­lim­i­nary heats with 6.82 and fourth in the semi­fi­nals with 6.87 af­ter plac­ing sec­ond in heat one.

LSU se­nior His­lop crossed sec­ond in the men's 60m fi­nal with a 6.75-clock­ing at the LSU Pur­ple Tiger meet at the Carl Mad­dox Field­house in Ba­ton Rouge, Louisiana.

Xavier Mu­lu­ga­ta, an­oth­er LSU se­nior, al­so lined-up in the dash and placed third in heat three and was 11th over­all with 6.92. and did not reach the fi­nal.

Badal, a Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado fresh­man, just missed out on a podi­um fin­ish in the women's 60m hur­dles fi­nal plac­ing fourth with 8.73 at the Potts In­vi­ta­tion­al in Boul­der, Col­orado. She ran the third leg in the 4x400m re­lay timed fi­nals and her Col­orado team won gold with 3:49.98 af­ter win­ning sec­tion two of two.

At the NAU Fri­day Night Du­als, Flagstaff Ari­zona, Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty se­nior Jem­i­nise Par­ris al­so missed out on a medal in the 60m hur­dles, plac­ing fourth in the fi­nal with 8.54. She lat­er placed fourth in the 60m heats with 7.85 and 19th over­all.

On Jan­u­ary 3, T&T's An­dre Mar­cano al­so suc­cess­ful­ly opened his in­door sea­son, sprint­ing to gold in the men's 60m at the Wag­n­er Col­lege In­vi­ta­tion­al at the Ocean Breeze Ath­let­ic Com­plex. Mar­cano, run­ning un­at­tached, crossed in 6.80.